Marco Tech Blog

March 9, 2012

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

I (and a few others) found out there are dependencies on older versions of FireMonkey in Update 4. Something left over on my PC... or do we need an Update 5?

I (and a few others) found out there are dependencies on older versions of FireMonkey in Update 4. The specific issue I found blocks the Component Wizard (not that this is key piece of the Delphi IDE, but still...). it might depend on seomthing on my machine, or at the opposite because I don't have older versions. Here is the error:

I've reported this on QC as http://qc.embarcadero.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=104016. But I've seen a few other related issues.

Seems not everyone can reproduce this. If you installed Update 4, can you double check and offer me feedback? I'll forward to Embarcadero.

Update: Works on a Clean Machine; Made it Work on Mine

Checked on a clean virtual machine, and indeed it works fine. Now I have to figure out what's wrong in my configuration, maybe a registry setting..... (after some time) I figured out that if a create a new set of registry entries (with the -r command line flag) everything works fine. So it is something in my registry. Tried a compare of the registry trees, but it is quite messy. My assumption is I have some installed packages which refer to older FireMonkey libraries, getting the packages (probably from the package cache) is OK, when you really load them, they fail. The Component Wizard probably loads many, fails one some.

A Not Too Bad Solution

So in the end I deleted the BDS registry entry for Current User (under Software / Embarcadero / 9.0), got a new snapshot, will have to re-install a few components, but the IDE works fine and the bug is solved.

posted by marcocantu @ 9:28AM | 9 Comments [0 Pending]

9 Comments

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

 Marco,
   I read something about this the other day, source 
forgotten.   Apparently, the "missing" file has been 
replaced by fmi162.bpl and in most cases you just need 
to recompile the problematic source.  Presumably in the 
other cases you need to amend the reference and 
recompile.

Comment by Allan Knox on March 9, 09:46

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

I think Bob Swart mentioned it (I forgot while writing 
the post). But the problem here is that the problem is 
in a package part of the IDE, not a third party one, and 
so I cannot recompile it... as I cannot recompile 
Delphi!

Comment by Marco Cantu [http://www.marcocantu.com] on March 9, 10:06

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

I can confirm this problem on one of my machines as 
well. I have already recompiled all my third-party 
controls, so they no longer require fmi161.bpl, but 
something clearly still does...

FWIW, my original post on this can be read at 
http://www.bobswart.nl/Weblog/Blog.aspx?RootId=5:5254 
I've posted a link back to your blog post here...

Comment by Bob Swart [http://www.drbob42.com] on March 9, 10:43

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

Can't reproduce here (Delphi XE2 update 4 Professional
with GExperts and AQTime installed, but no custom
components or plugins beyond that).

Comment by Chris Rolliston [http://delphihaven.wordpress.com/] on March 9, 10:52

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

Further hint. It seems it is not in the registry, but it 
might be referenced by some package... in any case, if I 
start the IDE with -p (that is ignoring my registry 
settings, everything works). SO I'm going to clean up 
registry and re-install third-party components.

Comment by Marco Cantu [http://www.marcocantu.com] on March 9, 11:06

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

maybe you can't recompile delphi but if the filename
has changed from fmi161.bpl to fmi162.bpl can't you
hexedit the file that references it to make "61" into
"62", it all depends which file it is and if it has
some hashes or crc checks or something to see if the
file hasn't changed. Even then hexediting the file
might be possible but you'll probably have to
recalculate and edit the crc or hash inside the file
as well.

That might solve the problem temporary until
embarcadero comes with another solution. One way to
find out which file(s) might contain references is
doing a grep or something similar (windows grep can
probably do this). if the files are not encrypted the
reference is in plain text it will find it and
hexediting it shouldn't be too hard

Comment by joyrider [http://www.willemssoft.be] on March 9, 12:43

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

On a completely different tack, I wasn't able to
compile at all because apparently, XE2 looks for a
system variable called PLATFORM which takes precedence
over the IDE settings, to decide whether to compile
for Win64, Win32, Apple OS, etc.

I found no way of getting XE2 to ignore it.

Evidently nobody at Embarcadero use HP laptops,
because HP pre-configure their machines with an
environment variable called Platform which is used by
one of HP's own tools.

Comment by berel on March 9, 17:32

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

to berel

> Evidently nobody at Embarcadero use HP laptops

yes, at embarcadero they use *ONLY* virtual machines
to develop delphi: *EVERYTHING* from the installation
to even the development of the same delphi IDE, is
done in virtual machines. Nobody is permitted to
develop on a physical machine and this is "insanely sane"!

And as much as it may seemm odd, this *IS* the way
software is build today: inside virtual machines.

Comment by fabio on March 10, 07:56

Delphi XE2 Update 4 Dependency Issues?

We encounter unpredictable oddities on client's PCs,
so at some point we simply have to test our products
on real machines, too. Cheaper in the long run.

Comment by berel on March 12, 16:03

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